Tag: painting

Crafty · Sewing · Uncategorized

Scrappy Sewing and Spring Cleaning

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello! This weekend was a very productive one. I deep cleaned the stainless steel kitchen island. A certain Piggy has been very interested in the bottom shelves lately. It’s nice to have it all shiny and organized again! Here’s the pictures.

Before
After
After

The Husband and I tackled the pantry shelving, which was sloppily built into the walls and had a distinct tilt to the front. I was honestly waiting for it to fall over in the middle of the night. Eek! Also, apparently, that’s where all the spiders were coming from. Blech! I made the Husband deal with that part. Here’s some before and after.

Before
After

To be fair, he did the pulling down of all the shelves and I helped organize and take things out to the recycling after breaking them down. We have these metal shelves for my craft stuff too and they are good shelves. There’s space for one more shelf next to the wall too, so there should be extra storage space. I worked on my sewing spot while he was pulling shelves off the wall.

Speaking of my sewing space, I made something fun for the week where the theme was to sew something other than fabric. It was inspired by someone in the button week who made a picture like it for her sewing room. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do with mine, but it’s super cute.

Isn’t it adorable? I used the leaf stitch on card stock and then backed it with translucent vellum and purple card stock. It was fun to to make. I made a water one too, but it wasn’t as successful. The buttons are hand sewn. I do have a button feature on my machine, but wasn’t in the mood to mess with it.

This wallet was made for the sewing challenge too. It’s not quite where I’d like it to be and I was reminded how much I hate making wallets while I was making it. They’re so fiddly and ridiculous. This pattern is the Demi Wallet from Linds Handmade. The pattern and instructions are fine, but my spatial reasoning and not wanting to take a couple extra minutes to interface did me in. It’s cute though and works well for the most part. I do think it’s a little chunkier than I’d like and the card slots got a little wonky, but that was due to user error/impatience, not the pattern.

This week, my entry was this cute tote bag in the same fabric for an extra Secret Garak swap present. Garak is a character in Star Trek: DS9 and is supposedly “just a simple tailor.” There’s a set of Star Trek groups on FB that are lovely and the craft group is called Garak’s Craftiers. They do a gift swap every year and I was able to join this year. This was the extra gift, as they needed an emergency gift. I’m going to make a little zip pouch to go with it too.

This was the amazing gift I received! It fits perfectly into my office decor.

This was the gift I sent. I was mostly pleased with it and my giftee said he liked it very much. There’s glow in the dark paint around the ship and for stars. I was excited to find black canvas to put it on. The ship is a vinyl sticker purchased from Etsy. I thought it was a cool angle. You don’t often see a front view.

I’m still lucky enough that my friend and her boys still happily wear the things I make. I made this tunic dress for her birthday. No pockets because they lay funny in this thinner dbp.

The boys got woodland shirts and these Baby Bear Joggers in a french terry. I have seen pictures that they are slightly too large for them and so look ridiculously cute.

I have a matching shirt. 😁

Here are two more shirts in my drawer. A neurotransmitter shirt for Valentine’s Day! Also, for work, because it’s the perfect therapy shirt. It’s got black bands and back and is the Sunkissed Tee.

This is another new pattern that I used for the challenge. It’s a Green Tee by Greenstyle Patterns. It’s free with a code from the FB group. I messed up the v neck, so it’s an around the house or under a sweater kind of tee, but it’s pretty comfy. The pattern comes with a scoop neck too.

Last, but not least, I made this super cute quilt for a friend from the office. She happens to like gnomes and rainbows and this quilt needed a good home!

I used the Accuquilt machine to cut the fabric for both blocks. The Patchwork block is a Snail’s Trail and the gnomes were fused and then machine sewn to the white blocks. Here are some close ups.

She really like it and has gotten many compliments on it. It makes me smile when I see it in the office. I’m definitely making one for myself at some point too. The Husband will complain for sure, but he can just deal with it. My love of gnomes isn’t going anywhere, after all.

Well, that’s all my exciting sewing and crafting for now. Piggy and I are both super tired and look like her picture below, so I should say good night. May your dreams be as cozy and comforting as a warm puppy!

Crafty · Sewing

Stress Sewing

LSiehLeave a comment

Why hello there! It’s been a stressful week! I think this week has actually lasted about 6 weeks. I’ve been sewing and sewing to keep my anxiety in check. It’s not working as well as it normally does, but it is working somewhat.

Painting things has been fun and I had a fun crafty day with our bubble friends painting some cute wooden decorations. Some of them went to the friend that couldn’t attend and others made it into our Hobbit Day celebration!

All the hats were painted greenish gold and they had beards and noses at the end!

I also painted some acorns!

Comfy clothes have been high in the rotation. I made this lovely chunky, cozy sweater last week and got double takes at work when I said I made it. 🙂 Excuse my wet hair!

Piggy got a couple of cozy new blankets too. She only has a couple and needed one for downstairs too. Of course, she needed piggies! I just bought two yards of both, split it, and serged them together. She seems to enjoy them.

Even the Brother got fun cozy pjs in the mail with his Hobbit Day cookies! I once wrote him a book titled “26 (?) Things To Do With Rubber Duckies,” which included a short choose your own adventure book where every ending ended with something exploding. 🙂 So obviously, he needed ducky pjs.

I made the shirt too and he was super surprised that I could also make “cool regular clothes.” He says they are both super comfy and was excited to get them. It was fun to make the set for sure. If I have enough ducks, the Husband may also get a pair. You know, after I make him the three flannel pairs I owe him already…

My friends’ boys have Viking shirts ready to mail. I should send them shortly, so they still fit them when they get there! I was trying to make something for their beautiful Mom too, but haven’t made the next thing yet. Here’s the bigger shirt. This is the Ellie and Mac Kid’s Raglan.

This shirt is a cozy sleep shirt. It’s pinky peach thermal with sleeves made out of an old pair of leggings, so I didn’t even have to hem them! I made a teal and grey shirt too out of this pattern, but I don’t seem to have a picture of it. Both of them are the Patterns for Pirates Relaxed Raglan.

I made a new shirt pattern too! This is the Sunkissed Tee from Peek-a-Boo Patterns. I really like it! It’s a dolman style tee, meaning the shoulders are incorporated into a single pattern piece. I made the first tee to the pattern measurements and the second one was altered by grading out, adding bands, and using a royal blue for back.

I made a second Uvita from Itch to Stitch because I really wanted to like the pattern, but the earlier floral thermal one was just horrible and looked like an old lady shirt. This one is made with a triblend fabric which is stretchier and drapes better. I also sized down two sizes and that seemed to help. K2 thinks I need a full bust adjustment to actually make it fit perfectly, but I don’t think I will spend my time on that. I have other patterns that I like better to spend my time on. It is so soft and comfy though, so it will be a good around the house shirt.

I found this cool possibly vintage bellydance pattern set from Mary Supplies on Etsy while I was buying elastic. It’s more fusion style, which I don’t have a lot of. I’m pretty excited to try the tiered skirts!

Last, but not least, here are my challenge entries for this week! The challenge was to alter or mend items, so I cut off the ill fitting waistbands on two Lularoe skirts and replaced them with yoga bands and then made a Lula dress into a pair of leggings. Upon putting on the leggings, I think that I will remake them into shirt sleeves as well. They don’t have quite enough stretch to be comfy.

In my organizing downstairs, there is still quite a pile of clothes to be altered or cut up into something else. I enjoyed finding new uses for these and am going to continue to try to get through the rest of the pile.

This weekend, K2 and I are having an at home sewing retreat to make up for having to miss the one we had booked. We weren’t comfortable with the rising Covid cases and the lack of prep for keeping everyone safe at the retreat center. So we’re hanging out at our house, sewing up a storm! It’s been lots of fun already. We’re all yawning and old people now apparently, so I’m going to head to bed to be ready for more sewing tomorrow! Have a good night!

Crafty · Life Posts · Monthly Review · Sewing

Christmas Gifts And Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, hello there! Glad to see you’re still around. I went through a bit of a busy time and got a little out of practice from blogging. I did just pay for three more years of the blog though, so you’re stuck with me for at least that long. 🙂

It has been a whirlwind and I did learn a few things over the past year in terms of sewing. I love my serger! My MIL was right when she said it would be a game changer. I’m sewing things I never would have dared to sew before, including hoodies!

I’ve experimented with more fancy stitches, new patterns, and traveled with my serger! I started making A wardrobe for my office dolls, which has been surprisingly fun and stress relieving. Here are my latest creations. The top two are the Riley tank dress from Made for Mermaids and the bottom right are Kelli Kimono Robes, also from M4M. The bubble dresses are the Vada’s Bubble Dress from CKC patterns. I’ve been enjoying using them to try new techniques in a less stressful way.

Of course, there were some negatives. I developed tendinitis from scissor use, had quilt fails, and added some more projects to the WIP and naughty bin. Oh, and I trashed my iron very well. Tripped over the cord and whipped it point down into the floor. Apparently irons aren’t meant to show their insides like that…

Overall, the positives outweighed the negatives though, so that’s always good.

I have a couple of goals this year. Making pants is one of them, as is figuring out undergarment patterns (don’t worry Dad, I won’t put pictures of the finished products on the blog.)

I joined the 52 Week Sewing Challenge on Facebook, which gives you a different theme or idea to sew each week. Each week is sponsored by a couple of different sewing related shops and when you post what you’ve sewn, you’re entered to win the giveaway from the sponsor that week. The cool thing is as long as you post something finished, you’re entered to win, so if you desperately need to finish a specific project, you have that option. The Week 1 challenge was to organize your sewing space and it was fun to see all the different ideas people had. Here is my before and after of my sewing table. The rest of the space is still a work in progress.

If you’re interested and on Facebook, you can look it up by that name and join the group. You have to answer some questions to join, but they’re all basic. It’s been fun so far. This week was UFO/WIP finishing week and I finished the owl quilt I was working on starting at New Year’s Eve.

It is from the book Rainbow Quilts For Scrap Lovers by Judy Gautier and is called “Owls Well That Ends Well.” Isn’t it cute? These are all from scraps, except the white, which needed to be from yardage. I used up a whole bunch of fabrics in it though. It’s backed with a purple and blue tye dye batik and gave me a bit of trouble. My sewing machine tension is off somewhere and the thread is misbehaving severely. The quilt looks cute though, just don’t look at the back seam…

I made a lot of our Christmas presents this year and it has been ridiculously hard to keep them a secret. Since the summer, I had been working on a traditional Finnish Costume for my Mom and will share that in another post as it was very interesting to do. It was my dad’s idea, but the whole family was in on it. 🙂

Another present I made for my Mom was this quilt, which I have been working on since last Christmas. I have enough fabric to make one for myself as well.

Here’s some pictures.

It’s a modified Shining Star pattern from one of my scrap quilts books. I added sashing too it, as I thought it needed a little something extra. It’s tied with buttons and the background of the squares is music fabric. The backing is a plain red and the binding is a glittery white and gold plaid fabric. I got super fancy and made my own bias binding.

Here’s some more closeups of my favorite stars.

I have heard that she likes it! 🙂

My friend K used the fish leather from the Quilt Expo last year to make a wallet for her dad. She said it was pretty easy to work with, so I decided to be brave and got some to play with this year. The end result were two little belt bags for my younger brother and his girlfriend! They are both salmon leather and from Fiskur Leather. The owners were super helpful in helping me figure out what would work best to sew it- polyester thread and a leather needle. I’m pretty proud of them. They’re meant to look a little rustic to match their characters. I used frog clasps to close them.

Their unit colors are purple and black, so I thought that this combo would be cool. I have also heard that they liked their things as well. The fish leather was pretty easy to sew with. It was more complicated to figure out the pouches with no pattern and with limited amounts of the leather. Sewed together fine though.

One of my goals for this year is to use up some more fabric. To that end, I used up my smaller fleece scraps by sewing up mittens and ear warmers for an organization called Night Angels. They work with victims of human trafficking and have a community outreach program. My work was making some Christmas bags for this program, so these were added to the presents. Here’s the prettiest ones:

I did buy some fleece remnants to make sure I would have enough, but they have all been used up. I used the last bits to make sleeping bags for the office dolls. Someone requested beds for them, but I don’t have room for furniture.

I painted these ornaments for my boss and the administrative staff at work. They each got a little set of three ornaments. I don’t have the best picture of them, but here is one of them.

I was gifted this lovely set by my MIL, who made it in one of her embroidery classes. It includes an apron, a pot holder, and a kitchen towel.

I’m sure to be sewing a bunch more things this year and am going to be taking on a few of my sewing fears, so it would be an interesting time. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to learn about!

Have a creative year!